Ship Ahoy!

February 11, 2016

Cruising has become an increasingly popular and highly cost-effective option for business-related conferences with cruise ships offering complimentary state-of-the-art conferencing facilities to rival the best that any land-based destinations can offer.

Significantly, cruising is one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism market worldwide, with operators offering an amazing array of destinations, themes, sizes of vessel and on-board facilities and activities.

Valued globally at $US39.6-billion, over 22-million people cruised in 2014 growing by almost 6,7 % in 2015.

More companies embrace the benefits of cruising.

These benefits include all-inclusive pricing and access to everything under one roof.

Cruise ships are built for business as they have excellent conference and meeting facilities on-board, full internet and WiFi access, as well as great opportunities for customised branding, excursions, team-building and entertainment.

To top it all, these facilities are offered in a top-end luxury environment which in itself never fails to inspire business events’ guests.

Compared with land-based conference venues, cruising also offers:

Great value: a wide range of affordable options where packages include everything: food, conference venue, drinks and entertainment.

A vast array of itineraries and destinations.

A variety of dining and cuisine options on board.

Several nightly entertainment options.

Ease of planning: cruising is a turnkey operation.There is no need to plan meals, entertainment, staging or décor. The planning and staging team on board will do it all.

The opportunity for partners to be included in packages, with their entertainment needs taken care of while meetings are underway.

Packages can be tailor-made to suit the group travelling. Customised menus, on-board branding, team-building events, shore excursions and private functions such as cocktail parties can be arranged.

Special entertainers and expert speakers can be brought in as part of their full-service offerings.

Cruise Liners also provide advice on shore excursions appropriate to the delegates.

This is also true for South Africa, where, like other industrialised countries, there is a large demand for quality vacation options at a reasonable price as well as a significant MICE market already in place.

South African companies can easily have their meetings while visiting European destinations such as Lisbon, Rome, Barcelona, Dubrovnik and Venice which is by far your most popular destinations followed very closely with Asia whereby a fast array of short itineraries are available throughout the year.

Our tip would be to book in advance to benefit from the early bird rates and have the ability to book the customization needs for your corporate client in advance.